Day Four: Cape Cod Circumnavigation
Posted by Joe Kelly on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 @ 08:21 AM
A great night sleeping under the stars on the Skiff. I set my alarm for 4:30am and was greeted to a beautiful pre-dawn morning. There was a light south west breeze and enough light from the stars that navigation was easy getting out of the harbor.
I left Nantucket harbor and set my first course for about a quarter mile off the Great Point Light House. It was 7 nautical miles to that point. The seas were one foot or less coming from behind me. At Great Point I started to get more light from the sun but it still had not come up from the horizon.
Sunrise off Great Point Nantucket
After getting to great point I headed almost due south towards Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge. This was about a 20 mile leg of the trip. The actual sunrise occurred during this part of the trip. Off Monomoy you are greeted with a lot of shoals to navigate through if you decide to stay close to shore. It is very well marked but I unfortunately ran into a very heavy fog bank. The picture below shows pulling up to one of the marks where fog bank began. After this picture was taken I was in fog for almost 2 hours.
When I came out of the fog around Eastham on Cape Cod it was a beautiful sunny day. The wind had started to pick up but I was protected by the large dunes along Cape Cod. I rounded Provincetown around 10am.
I decided to take a break from running the boat and decide if I should pull into Provincetown or go across Cape Cod Bay to Green Harbor to get fuel. As I was looking at the different distances on the GPS and deciding what the best use of time and safest decision would be a whale surfaced 200 feet from the boat!!!! The wale came up twice to get air and then disappeared. I tried to get a picture but unfortunately missed it. After that excitement I spent some more time thinking about my fuel situation and decided to go 20 miles across Cape Cod Bay and get fuel in Green Harbor.
The trip over to Green Harbor was very easy. I pulled in and Chris Roth came down to the gas dock and met me. We chatted about the trip for 30 minutes and then pushed off the dock for the last leg up to Boston. The last 30 miles up to Boston were rough. The wind had picked up but I was glad I left so early from Nantucket. It was around 1pm when I pulled into the Harbor.
I was a happy boater docking the boat that afternoon!!! 225 Nautical miles in 4 days!!!!
Pulling into home!! Boston Harbor Lighthouse